ETAP

Avantages

ETAP is a very easy to use application for electrical design, the features are very understandable and the rendering is professional

Inconvénients

Personally I did not see any disadvantage at my level

Avantages

Comfortable while using the software program and smooth interpretation and attractiveness of results."

"It could be very beneficial & beneficial device for each electric engineer. High degree Calculations may be accomplished very precisely & with excessive degree of accuracy."

"I constantly loved operating with etap due to the high-satisfactory of the software program and correct results.
Plus the truth that the reviews do not appear to be from a kind creator the manner SKM looks."

"Etap could be very beneficial for an electrical engineer, and is first-rate to version electric systems."

Inconvénients

"Various variations have mistakes that provoke new releases."

" Some Problems with distinct faucet changer for parralel application. Its Hard to personalize a TCC
curve."

"Problems with the installation, the extrade from check model to complete model creates many problems."

"It Lacks a few common products (e.g. cable library)."

Avantages

There are a few things in ETAP that are actually very attractive.

1. The very attractive thing about ETAP is its user-friendly graphical interface which is very attractive with state of the art graphical symbols having both IEC and ANSI options selectable on simple clicks along with color coding according to voltage levels. This helps visually a lot in classifying one's systems based on voltage levels.
2. Help Desk support is an excellent feature with FTP support area for large file handling.
3. One click report generation with study/scenario wizards saves a lot of time for complex projects.

Inconvénients

There are a few things in ETAP that are actually annoying sometimes.

1. First is the dumpster. Once you delete an element, you can't simply undo to restore it from dumpster. You need to be super smart to get it back. The undo / redo should be smartly management as in many other software. It will save a lot of hassle and time.
2. Backward compatibility is also a major concern. Projects created in newer versions can't be opened in older versions at all which is required sometimes to review the work of contractors. It should have some backward compatibility, say, to 4 previous releases.
3. Static studies such as load flow, short circuit etc do not consider turbine rating to generate alerts as the same is needed in some plants where turbines are under-rated than associated generators. No documentation is also available in this regard.
4. Library updates are also not available until next version is released. Limited models are available for ASD/VFD drives for harmonic studies even for very common drives. One has to create every common model manually which takes a lot of time.

Avantages

User friendly and thus easy to use than any other power system analysis softwares.

Inconvénients

Grounding system study is inferior than other competitor such as XGSLab, CDEGS. Main Ground Grid analysis of ETAP is suitable only for a simple soil condition. I experienced very difficult soil condition with resistivity in the range of 800-1500 Ohm-m which ETAP cannot help and Electricity Authority disapproved analysis using ETAP. Thus we have to seek for other software to solve the problem by modeling a customized grid conductor such as using clay covering bare copper conductor and analyze touch and step voltage.
Cables sizing calculation still has no capability to calculate according to IEC60287 standard which calculate from heat transfer theory. I have to purchase other software, CYMCAP, to calculate correctly. So ETAP is used for power system analysis only except cables sizing calculation and grounding system study.
Another cons is ETAP support. I experienced that sometime I found problem using ETAP in analyzing GCB, I asked ETAP for technical help but unfortunately EATP ignored my request and after several follow up I got a very simple words which is not any useful. I felt very bad with ETAP support team. I hope that ETAP support would be improved.

Avantages

1) Load Flow
2) Short Circuit
3) Motor Starting
4) Relay Coordination: Sequence Operation

Inconvénients

1) Harmonic Analysis - Result Difficult to Compare IEEE 519
2) Relay Coordination - Taking More Time to Prepare TCC
3) Not Having Feature to Change the TAG Nos. At A Time All Together (Like in Word Find/Replace)
4) Not Having Feature to Prepare Any Component Library User Friendly.
5) Not Having Feature to Change Model Component Symbols from IEC to ANSI or reverse all together at a time.

Avantages

I have been using this software for 30 years.
I have been a ETAP Agent for 20 years.
I have not seen or been exposed to any power systems software that can even come close to comparing to ETAP and the Enterprise Family of Solutions oriented Software.

Inconvénients

That is has taken so long to get key modules developed such as Panel and the Distance Relay.
It has cost me many oppertunities in sales.

Avantages

TCC, Arc Flash and short circuit studies help keep facility personnel safe and help identify where changes are needed.

Inconvénients

Running large study wizards needs to be able to produce the reports at the end. It is extramely troublesome to have to generate EACH report from a 200+ node compressor station where you have 20+ configurations for studies that are scheduled to run. Also printing TCC with the elements shown in the curves needs to be easier.

Avantages

Very powerful software. I like the reports that can be generated. The star graphs are really nice and look good in reports. I like being able to set up macros, it makes running multiple test cases a lot easier.

Inconvénients

I do not like that I have to buy a ton of modules just to get one feature. The experience thus far has been that we buy some modules and start performing a study. The results are not what we expect just to find out we are missing one feature that is in another module that we didnt buy. There seems to be little features that are important to other studies that are hidden within other, more expensive, modules and generally we do not need the entire other module, but have to buy it because we need the one feature to complete the study.

There are also some minor bugs such as not being able to have an NGR monitoring relay on a zig zag transformer. We also ran into an issue modelling a Y-Y transformer. The ETAP software does not allow for the consideration of the tank effect. These issues have work arounds but its hard to explain to a client that ETAP doesn't have this built in so we have to use a work around.

I also do not like that there is no save as ability. The save a copy of the file is weird.

Avantages

The software is good for asset management, real time simulation and for everyday problem solving on all designs

Inconvénients

They software is only forward compactible. Exchange of models between clients and designers wont be easy if we are using different versions.
I would to see the features such as lightning protection modelling using rolling sphere, EGM and shield angels. The software can only perform grid design for substation earthing only

Avantages

I am the administrator and worked / coordinated with IT to get the tools installed and up and running for the users. My work with the support folks when we had issues went very well and the support teams were knowledgeable.

Inconvénients

I am still waiting on feedback from the users and what they feel is missing from the tool.

Avantages

User-friendly. results are very clear. the processing is fast.

Inconvénients

It is extremely expensive. It may require more options for modeling the structure.

Avantages

ETAP has supported the nuclear power industry by designing and supplying software for our specialized analytical needs for over 20 years. They have become the defacto standard for nuclear plant power system analysis throughout the U.S. with over 90% of plants and utilities standardizing on ETAP.

Inconvénients

Although it may sound like I’m making this up, after using this software through all of its many evolutions over the years, I honestly can’t think of anything.

Avantages

Provides many of the engineering calculations for design and analysis of electrical power, protection and control systems in one software package. It is a necessity in providing our customers the best designs and arc flash analysis.

Inconvénients

I have to set up my defaults and tools the way that I like to use them and display them when I get a new version. I would like ETAP to add L-G faults for 1-Phase center-tapped sources.

Avantages

The software is easy to use and fairly intuitive.

Inconvénients

There are often products that are not available in the library.
Formatting can be very tedious and time consuming despite some of the "auto" formatting options. Default settings need to be set up on a per project basis, this is both frustrating and time consuming.
Exporting information to excel could be so helpful but there is some info that can only be found in "reports" and when these are exported to excel they are formatted to reflect a report style not just raw data which makes it very difficult to use this data efficently if you are creating your own report.

Avantages

The software is easy to use by first-time learners without much background. It is useful to develop and analyze power system networks particularly power flow studies, fault analysis, and protection coordination. The one-line diagram approach and report generation are quite useful.

Inconvénients

The library should be updated with modern power system components to simulate various current scenarios. The scope of studies should extend similar to PSCAD and EMTP softwares.

Avantages

I like it the most how user friendly it is and that it gives me the comfort that the results are correct.

Inconvénients

There are a certain things that are different in this software compared to others. E.g. there is no "save as", only "copy project to" and you have to open it afterwards (if you want to work on the new project). And copy - paste is different than in any other software. It doesn't bother me anymore, but it's weird.

Avantages

Etap utilizes all of the components the model and integrates them all together so it is easy to go from one module to the next and still work with all data and information from other modules. "Star" systems is an example.

Inconvénients

Alignment and viewing results on the one-line can get crowded but it can be edited to view only the critical information.

Avantages

The ability to dynamically model wound rotor motor starting with a time variable liquid rheostat.
A good library of multifunction electronic relays.
A good library of electronic motor protection relays.

Inconvénients

The library of basic TOC relays is not as complete as other packages.
A lot of additional modules to buy and pay maintenance on.
The wound rotor induction motor rheostat starting requires a chunk of calculations to get it in the form needed for ETAP. A lot of the ETAP trainers did not understand about wound rotor motor modeling and it took a while to get to the courses needed.

Avantages

I always enjoyed working with etap because of the quality of the software and accurate results.Plus the fact that the reports don't look like from a type writer the way SKM looks.

Inconvénients

Recently they sent Costumer service for the Library for USA to India. This has caused a response time of 2-3 hours to get extended to 3-4 days and the professionalism of the staff in India is not to the US standards.

Avantages

It is probably the most widely used power modeling software so it is easy to share with other users. All of its functions and device editors are "extremely" thorough offering an almost overwhelming number of study customization options. Overall, its use if fairly intuitive (but there is no substitute for attending a good old fashion class if you are a first time user). The online tutorials are excellent and tech support is great too.

Inconvénients

Like most software, ETAP does have some quirks that a user needs to learn either by peer coaching or through painful firsthand trial & error.

Avantages

ETAP is friendly to new user. And it covers all the required electrical calculation we may encounter in the work.
The technical support is good basically. We can always call technical support for help.

Inconvénients

The lower version ETAP can't open a higher version ETAP file. ETAP is updating new version while we may use various version.

Avantages

Friendly environment and the help is also good

Inconvénients

Better and more accurate grounding calculation

Avantages

This software provides a very friendly interface and variety of tools that ease the process of design in our field. Also the customer service has always solved our questiones promptly.

Inconvénients

Several features and tools are limited or restrained unless you purchase the full package.

Avantages

The variability of the modules and options for running simulations are pretty extensive.

Inconvénients

Some of the initial modules are expensive, and in general the functionality and setup are not as intuitive as I would like.

Avantages

Lots of good options, can be difficult to understand these options.

Inconvénients

Must pay for each option, need training on these options..

Avantages

- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Regular Updates

Inconvénients

ETAP Real-Time Module is quite expensive.

Avantages

Having used SKM and Easy Power, ETAP by far is the most accurate and easy to use power Analysis software. ETAP library is outstanding and easy to use. ETAP single lines also let you very closely represent the actual system in the field. We even rebuilt one facility after Hurricane destroyed all drawings.
The Customer service is also excellent and very helpful.
I have used ETAP since 1998.

Inconvénients

Most of the Issues encountered over the years have been fixed or addressed.

Avantages

The accuracy and the performance of the software

Inconvénients

The simplest form for the complex power system calculations

Avantages

The use of ETAP for the subjects of Energy Distribution Systems, Electric Machines and Power Systems, has been the best option, due to the intuitiveness of the software and that the students rely on to understand the topics seen in class.

Inconvénients

José Simeón Cañas University received a donation of the student version ETAP software, but we would have liked that student version were more modules enabled and limited in nodes of analysis.

Avantages

ETAP is a necessary tool for daily oil and gas engineering needs.

Inconvénients

We have no issues with this application.

Avantages

Short circuit and star device coordination

Inconvénients

Data base did not have enough info of iec rated devices and equipments

Avantages

The study wizards and the ability to export results is extremely useful in analyzing and presenting results of various analyses. The program is user friendly.

Inconvénients

I have had issues printing one lines in later version directly from ETAP. Although our network configuration may well contribute to the problem, we have not been able to solve the issue.

Avantages

I like how the help feature can be directly accessed from each pop up window. The help window is usually very thorough and provides addiditonal references.

Inconvénients

I would like the ability to delete elements between revisions, not just modify them

Avantages

The product is easy to use. Projects are quick to set up. Results are easy to interpret. Default values are helpful when equipment specific values are not available.

Inconvénients

The help function does not explain engineering concepts only how the value is required for ETAP. it would be helpful if engineering principles and concepts were explained

Avantages

modularity; updated machine models; better user support than other PSA's

Inconvénients

Cost and then again cost; etap isn't yet the top choice for T&D applications

Avantages

Arc flash, starting and load flow studies are easy to modelized and start to get a fast result.

Inconvénients

1- Problem with different tap changer for parralel application
2- Hard to customize a TCC curve

Avantages

It is solely for the benefit of electrical engineering works which require load flow studies, short-circuit current level ,discrimination and devices coordination etc .The software is validated and verifiable for carrying out the parametric runs.

Inconvénients

It is not freely available. Microsoft provides Office Applications freely on-line. Likewise, the versality of ETAP can be realised pathway as cited above is adopted.

Avantages

Incorporating industry standards. This software suite is widely used in PC companies.

Inconvénients

It will be very helpful to have examples of "small" systems for beginners to learn the software.

Avantages

Very Complete, lot of modules available. Great customer service, quick answers. Also quick to upgrade when there is change in IEEE, NFPA and other reference documentation. Great HELP functions.

Inconvénients

Price; quite expensive.
And as it is very complete, it is also complex, It akes a lot of time and practice to learn how to operate it. And if you are a long time without using it, it takes time again to get used to it again. Lot of parameters to configure for the different equipment.

Avantages

As an Electrical or Power Engineer, it is very for Load Flow, Short Circuit Analysis, Discrimination Study and Etc...

Inconvénients

It is very expensive in terms of Cost -Wise. Students and any Professionals can't use this except the Free Demo for 30 days unless he having money.

Avantages

FEATURES SUCH AS FAULT ANY BUS, CONTOURS FOR ARC FLASH ENERGIES, ETAP MOBILE APPLICATION, EASE OF USE.

Inconvénients

SOFTWARE UPDATE PROCESS THAT INVOLVES AUTHENTICATION EVERYTIME FOR EACH USER, NO ONLINE AUTOMATIC UPDATE, LIBRARY COMPONENTS LACK FEATURES SUCH AS ZONE SELECTIVE INTERLOCKING, NOT EXTENSIVE LIST OF COMPONENTS AVAILABLE WITHIN ETAP LIBRARY SUCH AS GE/ABB - AKR EGTU CONVERSION KIT, ETC.

Avantages

Accuracy in provided data, wide product library

Inconvénients

Lack of some common products (e.g. cable library)

Avantages

It has automatic steady state generation control of voltage and frequency, load forecasting and scheduling and helps save the energy and thus the money. It is from one of the best developers of electrical software- ETAP and hence very reliable.

Inconvénients

Its configuration requires detailed system knowledge. Inaccurate data or metering instruments such as CT, PT, etc. may lead to errors but that is true for other such software also.

Avantages

The annual maintenance contract for this software is expensive.

Inconvénients

Each version has errors that initiate new releases.

Avantages

I liked that ETAP can produce arc flash labels for you without having the user do manual calculations. The Scenario wizard makes it easy to study different configurations for the circuit

Inconvénients

I wish there was a function in ETAP that allowed the user to print select labels for equipment, instead it prints labels for the system voltage which is fine, I just wish there was a function in the software to make select lables for select equipment loads

Avantages

Cover all related topics for electrical issues

Inconvénients

No technical support in Egypt or periodic live Seminars

Avantages

Can perform complete electrical analysis of plant power system prior to adding new loads

Inconvénients

There is no room in scenario Wizard to put description of the designed study case.

Avantages

ETAP has numerous configurations and different ways to accomplish the same task to accommodate different user operating preferences. A establish software that meets most needs and appropriate learning curve.

Inconvénients

ETAP has several promising add-on modules that need to be purchased for good reason. However, an all inclusive package at least with initial testing features would be beneficial to get familiar with such features.

Avantages

User friendly, with good explanations in HELP

Inconvénients

Annual support fee is hard to justify and obtain approval when there is minimum project

Avantages

Etap Arc flash capability is great! Very good

Inconvénients

Not very user friendly. Not very easy to use